Phil Mickelson's Masters Collapse Will Spell Doom for Remainder of 2012

Phil Mickelson was close to winning his fourth Masters this weekend, but the loss might be a bad sign for the season.

The lefty came into the final round at Augusta only one stroke behind the leader, and most people were already to declare him the winner.

Unfortunately, a disastrous triple bogey on the fourth hole put him too far back to contend.

The problem for Mickelson is that the Masters is by far his best event.

In 20 appearances, he has 14 top-10s and won the green jacket in 2004, 2006 and 2010. From 1999 to 2006, he never finished lower than 10th place.

Outside of Augusta, the veteran has had much less success.

His only major win at the 2005 PGA Championship at Baltusrol. He has never won a U.S. Open, and his numbers at the Open Championship are very unimpressive.

Mickelson had a wide-open chance to win the first major of the year and blew it with two different triple bogeys. This might end up being his only chance in 2012 to win one of the four prestigious tournaments.

At 41 years old, he is not the golfer that he once was.

He has only won one tournament in each of the past two years, and he has dropped to No. 14 in the world rankings coming into the last week. 

While Lefty is still capable of having good rounds like Friday's 66, he does not have the consistency from his younger years, which will hurt his ability to win future tournaments.

There are still tons of fans who want to see Mickelson at the top of the leaderboards, but his best years might be behind him.